How to prepare for a solo flight during flight training

Before you are able to fly as solo pilot, you must have developed and perfected a set of skills involving the aircraft. These skills should be mastered and turned into second nature. You will experience all of these tasks by learning to fly under favorable weather conditions at your chosen flight training school.

According to Federal Aviation Regulations mandate 61.87,

Maneuvers and procedures for pre-solo flight training in a single-engine aircraft. A student pilot who is receiving training for a single-engine airplane rating must receive and log flight training for the following maneuvers and procedures with the assistance from you flight instructor:

• Proper flight preparation procedures, including pre-flight planning and preparation, powerplant operation, and aircraft systems
• Taxiing or surface operations, including runups
• Takeoffs and landings, including normal and crosswind
• Straight and level flight, and turns in both direction
• Climbs and climbing turns
• Airport traffic patterns, including entry and departure procedures
• Collision avoidance, windshear avoidance, and wake turbulence avoidance
• Descents, with and without turns, using high and low drag configurations
• Flight at various airspeeds from cruise to slow flight
• Stall entries from various flight attitudes and power combinations with recovery initiated at the first indication of a stall, and recovery from a full stall
• Emergency procedures and equipment malfunctions
• Ground reference maneuvers
• Approaches to a landing area with simulated engine malfunctions
• Slips to a landing
• Go-arounds
  

Many flight training students become frustrated in anticipation for their first flight. They must wait for suitable weather conditions and favorable circumstances. It can be draining to schedule your first solo flight and then be unable to go through with it because of changes in the weather. One student on The Student Pilot Forum describes his wait:

I flew with our chief instructor about a week ago and he said I had some great approaches followed by just about the worst landings he'd ever seen. But I know that the throttle make you go up and pulling back on the yoke makes the plane slow down, so he judged I was safe enough to be able to fly by myself at least a little.

Now if we could just get rid of the TSRA [thunderstorms] from the forecast. Cancelled yesterday and later saw a thunderstorm less than 5 miles from the airport, winds on the AWOS [Aviation Weather System] were 15G25. I know I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there, but that doesn't make being down here easy. I wish the clouds would dry up.

Hoping really hard for no rain tomorrow...or Sunday...or next Wednesday...”